Decaf Tea Found In The Wild (asianscientist.com) 101
Chinese scientists have discovered a type of tea plant that naturally does not produce caffeine. They published their findings in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. From a report: In 2017, Americans drank nearly four billion gallons of tea, according to the Tea Association of the US. The association estimates that up to 18 percent of those drinks were decaffeinated. To decaffeinate tea, manufacturers often use supercritical carbon dioxide or hot water treatments. However, these methods can affect the brew's flavor and destroy compounds that are associated with lowered cholesterol and reduced risk of heart attack or stroke. In the present study, researchers led by Dr. Chen Liang at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences studied hongyacha, a rare wild tea found in the mountains of southern China. They used high-performance liquid chromatography to analyze hongyacha buds and leaves collected during the growing season.
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I thought only coffee had caffeine?
Caffeine is produced by dozens of species of plants. It is a natural insecticide, and also discourages browsing since it tastes bitter to most mammals.
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Or maybe to encourage browsing and seed dispersal by birds and mammals while discouraging insect attack.
Re:Tea has caffeine? (Score:5, Informative)
Or maybe to encourage browsing and seed dispersal by birds and mammals while discouraging insect attack.
Tea has caffeine in the leaves. Coffee has it in the seeds. Neither species benefits from these being eaten.
Neither birds nor non-human mammals like the taste of caffeine.
Btw: "Hongyacha" means "red bud tea".
In every language the word for tea is similar to either "tea" or "cha". If tea first came to the country by sea, they adopted the Fujianese word "ti". If it came by land, they adopted the word "cha" used in northern China and along the Silk Road. The only exception is Japanese which uses "cha" despite tea first arriving by sea.
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Neither birds nor non-human mammals like the taste of caffeine.
To be fair, human mammals don't normally like the taste of caffeine either. It's an acquired taste, and often only after milk and sugar.
Re:Tea has caffeine? (Score:5, Informative)
Except [wikipedia.org] for [wikipedia.org] all [wikipedia.org] these [wikipedia.org] other [wikipedia.org] languages [wikipedia.org]. Did you learn that "fact" from the slashdot story [slashdot.org] a while back? You shouldn't believe everything you read on this website.
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Except [wikipedia.org] for [wikipedia.org] all [wikipedia.org] these [wikipedia.org] other [wikipedia.org] languages [wikipedia.org]. Did you learn that "fact" from the slashdot story [slashdot.org] a while back? You shouldn't believe everything you read on this website.
I think it wouldn't be too hard to see "herbata" as combining herb+tea and letting it evolve over a few centuries. As for two extra words for languages that barely anyone speaks... well, exceptions confirm the rule [wikipedia.org]. He is wrong, though, concerning "word by land" theory. In Portuguese the word is "chá" (sounds like "shaah") and the Portuguese reached China by boat. The page I linked above gives a better explanation.
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Actually four of your six examples DO come from tea, specifically from the latin "herba thea".
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In every language the word for tea is similar to either "tea" or "cha". If tea first came to the country by sea, they adopted the Fujianese word "ti". If it came by land, they adopted the word "cha" used in northern China and along the Silk Road. The only exception is Japanese which uses "cha" despite tea first arriving by sea.
Ha, then explain why in Polish it's called "herbata" :->
Re:Tea has caffeine? (Score:5, Funny)
It is a natural insecticide
Ah, *that* is why it's so useful when I'm debugging.
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Like most science news in general, the coverage on this is poor. There are tons of Camellia species (the tea genus) which don't produce caffeine, many of which are consumed. What makes this one (Camellia ptilophylla) special is the very high theobromine content in the leaves (6%), thus the apparently recent English name, "cocoa tea".
Tea contains a lot of interesting compounds, and the ratios between each one vary a lot depending on the Camellia species. Some have meaningful caffeine (including ones with mu
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Maybe it would help if you stopped spamming your worthless shit on slashdot.
Desirable cafeine (Score:4, Funny)
these methods can affect the brew's flavor and destroy compounds that are associated with lowered cholesterol and reduced risk of heart attack or stroke
Compounds like cafein, you mean?
Rooibos Tea (Score:2)
No caffeine. Discovered several hundred years ago.
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Just because it is marketed as tea doesn't mean it's actually tea.
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It is not tea.
But then is Hongyacha tea?
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Doesn't have to be sinensis, camellia japonica tea also works, although it is somewhat bland, obviously not being cultivated for the taste. Other kinds of camellia might work as well.
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Interesting plant, though. It likes very acidic soils - tolerating pHs as low as soda. It also likes high levels of alumium, which are normally toxic to most plants.
Re: Rooibos Tea (Score:2)
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Re: Rooibos Tea (Score:2)
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Green tea is indeed mostly good for you - it's hydrating and has lots of things in it which are generally beneficial. It can however affect your absorption of iron. That's not necessarily a problem for many people, but for those who need to keep their iron topped up, lay off the green tea.
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lay off the green tea
Or just eat some organ meats.
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Most western diets already have plenty of meat in them, and so have plenty of provision for iron intake. Assuming you're eating meat pretty much daily, then there's already enough iron there. If you're not seeing it in your blood, then you have a problem with absorbing it. Sure, eating super-iron-rich foods may push your levels up, but dealing with the absorbtion issue could mean you don't need to do so. If you're drinking a couple of cups of tea per day, then switching from green tea to (say) rooibos may b
Appropriate measurement (Score:2)
A "cup" is also a hard to define. In the US, it is 8 US ounces, in the old UK system it was 10 UK ounces, and the international metric cup is 250ml. See the article "Cups and Ounces" here. https://www.thecalculatorsite.... [thecalculatorsite.com]
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Brushing aside the notion that American's drink tea (I thought you threw it in Boston harbour)you denounce cups based on the concept that there is standardized size for a cup.
However you are fine with gallons. So would that be an Imperial gallon at 4.54609 litres (8 imperial pints) or the Queen Anne Wine gallon at 3.785411784 litres (231 cubic inches as used in the USA) or the US dry gallon at 4.40488377086l.
Then again it could one of a whole series of pre 1884 UK liquid measures all called gallons.
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Americans drink tea. The stuff we threw into Boston Harbor was in fact tea, but it wasn't thrown overboard because it was tea, but because it was being taxed.
You see, the issue wasn't we liked coffee better, but that we liked not paying taxes and coffee was not subject to crazy tax rates by the crown...So, in true social justice fashion, it became un-patriotic to drink tea in the colonies. It was seen as spitting in George's eye, the guy in charge who didn't seem to care one wit about his subjects on thi
Caffeine-free in name only (Score:3, Informative)
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Something is wrong. (Score:1)
Eureka, he's a friggen profit! (Score:2)
They discovered covfefe!
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The consumption will go down rapidly (Score:2)
Now that I've moved back to England... My six-pot-a-day habit will have a serious impact....